Activism bypassing

I got into a discussion with a friend about the current state of things. I don't spend that much time thinking about the large issues facing the world. When you look at it all, things do certainly seem to be going in a bad direction. But I also don't know what the future holds. I also know there's little I can do to influence things one way or the other. So I think the thing to do is focus on improvement in career, relationships, health and psyche/inner self. That's the best I've come up with.

Sometimes our mind is overwhelming us with worry about the state of the world precisely because it knows that those are problems we can't solve. Precisely because it knows that that will be an endless distraction, a distraction to keep us from doing the work on ourselves that we need to do. Ego is highly tricky like that. I think in a lot of cases, a lot of the hardcore activists in political activism, environmentalism, etc, are putting so much energy and worry into their causes as a coping mechanism for their own wounds. Not that there aren't terrible things that there need to be activists about. But sometimes I think I'm seeing too much unaddressed psyche damage playing out. I just caution against falling too deeply into any one of the four quadrants. I advocate for being sure all quadrants are being addressed. And also, if we’re going to be effective activists, we ought to establish a solid foundation (of health, career and relationships) from which we launch our activities.

☺

Peace,

Dave Roel.

People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own soul.

- Carl Jung